Maybe
by Salmon
Summary: This is a Mick fanfic. It's theory I had after seeing some of the episodes. Probably is a bit AU, but oh well...


Maybe   
A Xyber 9: New Dawn Fanfic  
  
This a pretty serious fic. It's a Mick fanfic. It stems from a theory I had after seeing all the episodes that played in my area. Note that I said "in my area" because I've found out surfing the web that other areas got to see a few more episodes before it was canceled, so I may have some thing wrong. But I always figured something was up because he knew stuff noone elsed did - like subway tunnels. Well, anyway, I don't own the show or characters (pity!) but I did create some stuff. Onward!  
  
  
'When you're 10,000 years old your memory isn't what it used to be. I can't remember the first war, really. Only snatches of pieces of battle. Of the cold, clammy liquid I spent my time in when unneeded.  
Memoris of the second aren't much clearer. There was less time in the liquid, though, and more time on the battlefield. I received my first medal in the second war, but it meant nothing to me. I was made to fight the Machina, so why reward me for it?  
"It's a human thing." Tom, my commander, told me. "Smile, act honored. and forget it. They will quick enough."  
But the third war changed me, and my life, forever. There was no time in the liquid then. And two hundred years passed. I didn't age though. GC Soldiers don't. During the first hundred years things were normal. But in the second hundred...something changed. The battle was more desperate- on both sides. The Machina knew the long war was taking its toll more on them than on humans or us. There's lots of humans to begin with and alot are born in a hundred years. As for us, we could always be remade. But there were only so many Machinas, and they couldn't reproduce as fast as humans. And the humans and us were just tired of fighting them after over a hundred years. They started assigning human soldiers and GC soldiers into squadrons together - which had never been done before. For the first fifty years we didn't interact or even talk much off the battlefield. But the humans attitudes began to change after fifty years. At this point I had six or seven medals, and Tom was killed. Instead of re-making him they put me in charge. I didn't understand why. Tom had taught me everything I knew; he'd always been remade before, why not now? I wouldn't learn until the end of the war that humans no longer knew how to do that. That so many GC soldiers survived the 200 Year War said alot for our skill.  
I was in charge of both GC and Human soldiers. And I met a very young human named Marc. He didn't know much about fighting, but he was good at following orders. He told me I was his "hero". I didn't know what that meant at the time. I watched him grow as a soldier, and a human. He was a General when the war ended, and much, much older. I had never seen anyone age. It felt odd, waching Marc change so fast.  
Less than ten years before the war was over I met another human soldier. Her name was Augusta, and she would change my world forever. No GC soldier had ever known peace. We were created in the first war to fight the Machina and when the war was over, we were put into suspension for the thousands of years between it and the second war. The same thing between the second an third. The third war had lasted so long that Augusta had never known peace either. Perhaps that is why Humans and GCs had been able to talk and understand eachother during the end of the third war. Always before, humans had known peace and we had not, in the third war the humans no longer knew peace by the end.  
But humans had records, and Augusta had read about peace, and seen pictures of it. She told me all about it. When the war was over she was going to be a "treasure hunter", and search for lost and forgotten treasures. I didn't understand, so she explained money and adventure to me. Adventures sounded a bit like war, and I told her that. She laughed at me. I'd never really known embarrassment before, to GCs there was only three things. War, Battle, and Waiting. We were identical to humans, with all the same emotions and hopes, but all our lives all we'd known was the wars. And that was all that we'd ever know, it seemed.  
But the more time I spent with Augusta, the more I wanted more. I wanted what she talked about. Peace, Fun, Adventures, treasures...But I was a GC. I would never have such things. Eventually it hurt too much to think about, so I stopped thinking about it.  
That was when the inevitable happened. The war ended. For months we waited, watching. Was it a trick? Or had the Machina retreated? It turned out they'd retreated. And then it was time for us to go into suspension. Marc came to see me the night before. To tell me I was stoill his hero, and always would be. And the day we were being put into suspension, Augusta caught me before I entered the facility...'  
  
"Mick!" Augusta ran forward, grabbing his arm. "Don't do it - please. Don't go in. You don't have to. This is a different age then the one you were made in. Most of the high people in government are people like Marc - people who fought beside you, who were saved by you. If you ask, I'm sure you'll be allowed to stay out. All of your people. You have every right to Peace, too. You helped make it."  
"...We are what we are. "I'm a GC soldier."  
"You're human." Augusta disagreed.  
Mick shook his head. "No, I'm not...I've lived two hundred years and not aged a day. You mentioned Marc?...Augusta, when I first met him he'd just joined the war. He barely knew how to fight. Now he's a General...and so changed..."  
"He's grown old." Augusta admitted.  
"How long will he live? How long will you? All of you who fought with us? Fifty? A hundred years? And what then? Will your descendants be so generous to us? I don't think they will...no, let it be. We were made for war. We were made to fight the Machina...I think we should stick to that."  
"...I love you..." Augusta told him. "I know you don't know what that means...but I think I could teach you, if..." She began to cry, lowering her eyes.  
Mick tilted her face up. "Tears? No tears. I like smiles, better....Don't let this be my last memory of you."  
"I'm sorry." Augusta wiped her tears, and smiled a brilliant smile. "I love you. Remember that. Maybe, someday, you'll understand what it means."  
"I'll remember your face and voice when your people's descendants no longer remember the names of your age's cities...I could never forget you."  
Augusta kissed him, then pulled back - smiling despite the tears she blinked back. "Remember that, too..."  
Mick nodded slowly, and walked away - heading into the facility with the other GC Soldiers.  
  
  
"Augusta...Shantah....Augusta Shantah. Here. She was a world-famous treasure hunter." The girl at the computer library told him. "No husband, no children...But look at all the treasures she found."  
"Can you print this out?" Mick asked her.  
"Certainly, sir...I'd be happy to. Commander, right? Nine medals, you must be quite a warrior." She turned to do as he'd asked.  
  
  
'That had been the fourth war. It had happened only 600 years after the third. And had only lasted thirty years. With the print-out in my pocket, I re-entered suspension...How many thousand years passed? What happened? The society we'd watched grow fell apart. Forgot everything. Forgot the wars...Forgot the Machina...Forgot us...'  
  
  
Mick's eyes shot open. He was in a closep capsule, liquid about him. It wasn't draining away. He waited, but nothing happened. Through the liquid, through the glass front of the capsule, he could see only darkness - no humans. He started kicking the glass. He needed air! The liquid clung to him. He thrashed, hitting and kicking the glass. Why wasn't the liquid draining? Why wasn't the capsule opening? He couldn't breath! Finally the glass gave way, and he collapsed to the floor outside the capsule, gasping for breath. "Hello?" He called, but noone answered.  
Standing up he looked at the capsule next to him. It was already broken, but it's occupant was nowhere in sight. He approached the next, but drew back in horror at the sight that met his eyes. He whirled away, hurrying to a nearby console. It was wrecked. He stepped back, shaking his head in disbelief. Then the sound of glass breaking drew his attention to a nearby capsule. A figure lay on the floor, gasping for breath. He ran to them. "Are you alright?"  
The figure looked up. "Commander!" She pushed herself up; saluting. "Sir! What's the situation? Are we under attack?"  
"Not that I know of. But something is wrong. There aren't any humans anywhere...some of the other soldiers are dead in their capsules. Other capsules are broken, but I don't know where the soldiers from them are."  
"Why aren't the capsules opening? Or the liquid draining? The computer-"  
"Is broken. A wreck. I don't know how to fix them. Anyone who's waking up now would be dead by the time we fixed it anyway."  
"What do we do?"  
"Try to find out if anyone else is awake and help get them out." Mick looked around.  
"There's 200 capsules. Someone could die if we're too late."  
"That's why we need to hurry." Mick told her grimly. Then his head snapped up at the sound of glass breaking.  
"Someone else." The other soldier smiled in relief.  
"I'll check this row, you go check on them."  
"Alright." THey hurried away.  
  
  
'Of the ones who'd been put into suspension half were already missing. Over half of what remained were dead. 200 GCs per facility. 48 of us. If any other facility had escaped the destruction, we weren't sure then. Some we found later were empty. Others all the soldiers were dead...The Machina would have just killed us. That left only humans to destroy the consoles. But after all we'd done, why would tehy do that? We left to explore the world, and search for the other facilities. We agreed to meet back in 5 years time. Of the 48 that left the facility only 23 would return. Noone was surprised. We'd left a peaceful world to our suspension, and awakened to war-torn chaos. Not a Machina in sight. The world that awaited us was savage and strange. No previous age had been like this that we could recall. And the beautiful world of Terrana we'd fought for in four previous wars looked nothing like she had. We parted ways one final time. Some did go in pairs and groups; I left alone...  
But something had changed. What was it like to age after 10,000 years of agelessness? I can't even begin to describe. Terrana had been poisoned by Machestro. Somehow his poison had affected us, too. I found a life in the chaotic world. Soldier of Fortune...Treasure Hunter....And I had a shrine to Augusta, where what treasure I'd collected was horded...'  
  
  
"The Machina are back." Mick spoke to the air as he laid a jeweled necklace next to a neatly kept pile of treasures. "I've joined the fight. They're a real bunch of rookies...atleast I'll grow old with this group...why fight for humans when I'm almost certain it was humans who tried to destroy us? You, I guess. I promised to remember you, and I always will...and, like I said to you, we were made for war. To fight the Machina...might as well stick to that...but treasure is nice, too. Just like you said it was. Adventures are a little like war...They'll get suspicious if I'm gone - They don't know what I am. Or what I was, I suppose. I guess I really am a human now...and as for love, Augusta...I know what that is now. And even if it's 5000 years late I want to tell you - I love you, too...  
"Maybe I'll live to see the peace I'm helping create...."  
  
  
Salmon 2002 


End file.
